I had an epiphany today when I was writing in my grateful journal. I noticed there was something different about what I was writing. They were things that just came to me unbidden, just flowing and I don’t know how or why they popped into my head.

Here’s the thing. I had always recorded the good things in my life. It had never occurred to me to be thankful for the irate driver who cut me off during rush hour traffic. Yet that is exactly what was happening.

I first wrote that I was grateful for love, kindness, joy, emotions that fill the heart and spirit. The very next thing I wrote was I am grateful for grief, sadness, angst and heartache for they give birth to goodness, joy and love. Without this breaking of the heart, without this despair, without this great darkness we cannot find our way to love. I am slightly dumbfounded and I know these messages were brought forth from me by spirit and it is intended to light the way for me, to help me grow and I am thankful for this.

Interestingly enough I had written this a week prior and reading it now see how they are divinely connected.

Grief
It strangles me.

I choke on the bitterness
of regret.

I drown in the warmth of tears
unbidden, unwelcome.

Alas, I would die
except for the tiny flicker of love
that lives in my soul. 

I am extremely excited about this epiphany. I see how past hurts, regrets, despairs, disappointments, heartbreaks were a transformation into something greater. I also see how timing is everything. Not our timing. The Universes’ timing.

When I divorced I didn’t believe that good men existed. Not just because of what had happened in my marriage. I just didn’t really know any except of course for maybe my dad and a few of my friends’ husbands. Overall though, the goodness of men pretty much didn’t rate on any scale.

I had prayed for my husband to be a Godly man, to be an honorable man. And even after I divorced I had this prayer that I would find a good man. I didn’t think that I would have goodness again. I went about my life with a long forgotten prayer and in an answer to this long forgotten prayer I did meet a Godly, honorable man. I did not see until today when I was writing in my journal how everything had just come together.

Timing is everything. I wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready. The heartache, the regret, the despair had to carve out their parts making room for the goodness, joy and love. Lessons needed to be learned, layers of lessons, one by one each one bringing a new dimension, a new angle on which to view the mountain. Without these so called bad feelings I wouldn’t be appreciative of the beauty that would be revealed to me. Its like having thirsted for days in the desert and when you get your first drink of water how good that first drink is, how the coolness rolls on your tongue and swirls in your mouth. Before you didn’t notice it, you just drank the water without even really thinking about it.

Along with this epiphany is that feelings are neither good nor bad, they just are. They are all transforming. They all take you somewhere. The thing is we never know where that place might be. It might be at the top of a volcano or to the depths of a ravaging sea. The challenge is to be in it. To not fight it, to let go and feel each and every layer of this moment and the next one that is to come. We are all gems in the rough and each time an emotion washes over us a little more of the roughness is removed until more and more parts of the gemstone are revealed.

My challenge to you then is to find things to be thankful for that were painful and find how they transformed you and how there was blessing in this. Don’t think about it. Just grab your journal and write whatever comes to you. You just might be surprised at what you learn about yourself and the person you have become. As always blessings for whatever comes your way and transforms you.